Pancakes

I miss my father. Not strange, I guess, he died a few years ago and the death of a close relative is bound to strike some emptiness in anyone, and missing said parent should not be a surprising thing to most people. Without regard to the relationship you shared or the closeness you felt, this person is no longer there and therefore there is a manshaped hole where no hole should perhaps be.

This is a general, low-level missing. The kind you don't really notice. When your friends are gone for the weekend and you really want to go and grab a movie you miss them, this is much more acute, not to mention partners or significant others that you want with you when you want to watch a sappy movie or when you are just plainly noticing the enormous size and loneliness of the bed you're in alone. This too is a type of missing that is very much of the here and now.

But losing a person to death makes for a type of being apart that has really settled in, it knows that you'll have years of not being together to come and it needs not to be so fierce as all the other types, it can take it's time, and it doesn't ask much of you. The difference perhaps between the psychologist that is trying to talk you down from a ledge RIGHT NOW versus the one you hired for a year's worth of therapy, paid in advance. The knowledge that there is more than enough time for the good bouts of missing to come so as not to rush things now.

But every once and again ( a phrase I am fond of, as you might have noticed) this tenant in your mind does feel the need to press a couple of buttons and really make you realize that the missed one is not there, nor will he/she perform a specific action ever again.

And thusly, now, I miss my dad. I hadn't really realized it untill this weekend, which managed to bring the point home quite without argument, but I miss my father most and fiercest when confronted with home-made pancakes. Pancakes of any kind, really.

My mother used to do all the cooking in our house, and she did and does it wonderfully, she is a great cook. But my father made pancakes, and eggs. Eggs more often than pancakes, but eggs are easier, pancakes are special.
When he died, a few months after he died, I was having a conversation about the blasted things with a group of co-workers and I mentioned that my dad used to make great pancakes. This resulted in nothing more than a slight decline in my general mood, nothing much more.
This weekend, Thursday, my housemate made pancakes, and then Friday I had them at the birthday of a friend.
Two nights in a row of pancakes, and two nights in a row of a slight sadness I was not quite able to place. After all, I'd had pancakes during the last few years, nothing happened there, hell, I must've even made them myself at least...

Never.

I have never made a single pancake myself.

Off course I never did.
Even when writing this down I know I have never done the deed because it isn't my thing to do. Making pancakes is his job, not mine. Ridiculous.. Right?
Come to think of it, I haven't eaten them all that much... Not counting this weekend I can only remember one visit to a restaurant where I have ordered a pancake. That makes three incidents of pancake-eating in almost three and a half years.
Typing this is actually physically difficult. Writing this down, even just for me and whomever reads this seems to be opening a kind of emptiness inside me that I don't often experience, a dullish ache not related to hunger or boredom or loneliness, but the very sure and certain knowledge thet my dad will never make a pancake for me or my little brother again.
Strange.

I know smells can be marvellous to jump-start memory, I know that certain colors and tastes can bring on a rush of experience that rivals actually being there. None of this is happening. I cannot recall a single pancake he ever made. I don't have warm memories of him standing by the stove and flipping them in the air or me waiting for that first warm piece of dough. None of that. No sunshine slanting through the kitchen windows, no clean white porcelain plates steaming on the tables, no golden syrup dripping and making shapes in powdered sugar landscapes.
None of that.
Just the knowledge of no more pancakes made by my dad. Because he isn't there any longer. And it seems unfair, but that doesn't matter, running outside and shouting that it isn't fair won't make it otherwise, it can't be helped. It seems just such a foolish thing to miss. Not the wisdom he has given me, that I still have, or the things he should have been there for, for in a way he will be, as I will keep him with me always, but pancakes.. Something robbed me of them.
And yet I don't hate pancakes, like them even, not the best food in the world (that would be nigiri ikura) but okay, I can do them, and I should be able to make them. But I won't.

It's his job.

suckitysucksuck

Every now and then things completely stop making sense.

Not that this is such an uncommon occurrence in my life, but some of those everynowandthens can really take the spunk out of you.

There I was, happily on my way home after receiving some good news. I was invited for a 2nd interview at the company where I was hoping to be employed in the near future, and I had been asked to fill in an online test which would measure my abilities and suchlike.

Well, online I went, logging in with the appropriate data, and off I went. The object of the test (PAPI-testing) was to measure abilities and pitfalls by choosing one of two given statements which best reflects your personal preferences. These could vary from “I would rather pick flowers than shovel dung” to “I like standing up in small rooms”.
Well, off I went, clicking and selecting and choosing and appraising and whatnot, shouting and whooping with the sheer joy of being alive.
After I had finished this I was invited for the second interview. Oh joy of joys, oh happy chaos, I was judged and found worthy of entering the hallowed halls of employment.
Well, I was allowed into the hall, and into a small interview room, where the first thing said was “Well, Kevin, you did the test very fast, fastest ever, for us, even”
“Why thanks”
“And the first thing that strikes us is an apparent and blatant disregard for personal organization. Very detailminded, highly creative, leader, but I would say that your desk would mostly resemble a cross between a trash-heap and a landslide.”
“euhm… well…It’s not that you’d find week old pizzaboxes and stuff on there, but no, personal organization has never been my strong point indeed…”
“No problem, some people need creative chaos.”
The subject fizzled out at this point and well, I am not that good at organizing my own stuff. I can set up a workable archive like no one’s business, can organize an employee get-together at the drop of a hat and am mostly able to oversee loads of ongoing projects at the same time. BUT STILL my own desk looks like a cross between a thrift shop and a library gone guerilla. And woe to any who would try to discern any type of pattern in all this.

This has worked well for me, I have risen to pretty much where I want to be, nice responsibilities, creative output, not too much hassle system-wise, all’s well.
But then…there came reports.. These weren’t as bad as all that, I was asked to keep a semi-detailed list of the clients I’d got across my little desk during the day, and that wasn’t as bad.
More reports, then more, and even more, and different kinds, and though it annoyed me a little, I did fill out the lists and forms as best as possible.

Now, yesterday I was asked to oversee the input of reports. Not asked, it was demanded of me. Reason: Doing the reports would give me a stronger grasp of personal organization and force me to maintain an organized workload.

I CAN’T DO THAT. I DO NOT HAVE THAT ABILITY. I am almost physically unable to do my OWN reports, let alone collate and do the required mathematics and calculations to do them for the entire department. You can force me all you want but it will take literally hours for me to do something that the person who did them previously (who is still working in the department and has an accounting-background) would’ve done in less than 15 minutes.
I was so close to crying I could actually feel the tears already.
And not just because I now had to do something I very much resented doing, but also that the only reason I was selected for the job was some spiteful revenge for the simple fact that I was rarely on time or complete in my own reporting. This had annoyed a manager, who considered forcing me was a real sweet plan.
That was yesterday.. today was my first day as the departmental graph-er. And it sucked. Really.
It took me three quarters of an hour to even begin comprehending which numbers went where, the why I’m still unclear on and where the numbers had to come from is a next to complete mystery to me.
They were done, in the end, and I can try again this afternoon.

And you know, I have written proof by our own HR-department that a task like this should not be asked of me unless it cannot be in any way avoided. That I would be one of the least likely people to bring this of to a good end... Still...

So the manager comes and tells me the reports look good, but the production is very bad.
I explain that my own production was sucked into the freaking reports, and the only response was “you’ll learn.”

I will not learn. I will do these things for two hours everyday until someone notices that my production drops every freaking week. Not that this is what I want to happen, but really, I can't do these things, I will forget, I will procrastinate to the point of avoidance, and the added stress will make me cranky.
AND I will start looking for a new job. Which is not in and on it’s own a solution, but to do this for two more weeks will sap any enjoyment of my work anyway, and that is something I’d like to avoid.
My two direct colleagues actually have already complained that it is complete nonsense to ask us to do these things when the person who set up the reports and is by nature very well suited to keep them is sitting all of two desks away, but they as well got the general “do it because I say so” response.

Hrmpf.
Well, enough ranting for today, I’ll promise to do a more regular and frequent update of this thing.

Also: does anyone know of any open positions in the general customer care/account-management-field?